By Bonnie Culverhouse
Members of the Minden City Council are considering an agreement with the Louisiana Office of Debt Recovery to help the city retrieve delinquent payments.
“We went to the Office of Debt Recovery and they would recover any amount of money that is owed to the city,” said Mayor Nick Cox. “It’s very broad what they can go after. They have different tools in their tool box.”
ODR is under the Louisiana Department of Revenue.
“They do not charge us for the service,” said the mayor. “They tack that fee onto the end user.”
He explained that if the city has tried to collect the debt and cannot, ODR would collect it and add to it a percentage that would be paid to the state.
There are several departments within the City of Minden that are owed money.
“Occupational licenses are particularly delinquent,” Cox said. “We seem to have a problem with our citizens defaulting on utility bills and other areas where citizens are fined, like traffic violations.”
Cox said utilities alone are more than $800,000 delinquent since 2022.
“People don’t realize that the city literally pays for the utilities, and the citizens pay us back,” he said.
“I think that as managers of the city’s budget, we should do what we can to recover any monies owed to the city,” Cox continued. “And it’s not just a matter of recovering money owed to the city, it’s about making sure that we have the ‘teeth’ to enforce the rules that we make and get people to follow through with the penalty.”
ODR enforcers do their jobs by making phone calls, then possibly wage garnishments and income tax offsets.
“These things are not very pleasant, but these are things that would only apply to people who are willingly and purposefully defaulting against the city,” he said. “We have to realize those who pay for these defaults are the ones who don’t default. Somebody has to make up for it.”
If the council agrees, the resolution could come up for a vote at the May meeting.
ODR is the Office of Debt Recovery, a division of the Louisiana Department of Revenue authorized to collect outstanding debt owed to Louisiana state agencies, parishes, municipalities, boards & commissions.